> 16 bit as standard. Do a gradient in an 8 bit Photoshop document and you will see how limited 8 bit info is. (OUR PAINT supports this).
For interest, this seems to be an active issue for the HTML <canvas> element in browsers. There's a proposal[1] to extend the canvas data type to include both "unorm8" (the beloved default) and a new "float16" (normalised?) format - which should meet your desire?
Typically, the proposal seems to have shipped already in Chrome/Edge browsers. Documentation around what the new functionality is for and how to make best use of it is (of course!) sparse - MDN barely mentions it. As a canvas library maintainer I find this upsetting (eg: Ignore it and it might Go Away).
(I think for now my unhelpful response is: manipulate your RGB images as much as you like; just do it in the OKLAB color space.)
> (I think for now my unhelpful response is: manipulate your RGB images as much as you like; just do it in the OKLAB color space.)
Good advice. I am often introducing photographers to color editing in Lab. They are always amazed at how much more sensitive their lightness and saturation adjustments are.
> manipulate your RGB images as much as you like; just do it in the OKLAB color space
Be careful, OKLAB also isn't quite handling energy correctly (Or, the gradient of the energy slope in this color space had quite some irregularities). In most cases you can get a more "natural" transition (like blue doesn't visually shift to purple when transitioning to white), so make sure you know what you are doing.
For interest, this seems to be an active issue for the HTML <canvas> element in browsers. There's a proposal[1] to extend the canvas data type to include both "unorm8" (the beloved default) and a new "float16" (normalised?) format - which should meet your desire?
Typically, the proposal seems to have shipped already in Chrome/Edge browsers. Documentation around what the new functionality is for and how to make best use of it is (of course!) sparse - MDN barely mentions it. As a canvas library maintainer I find this upsetting (eg: Ignore it and it might Go Away).
(I think for now my unhelpful response is: manipulate your RGB images as much as you like; just do it in the OKLAB color space.)
[1] - https://github.com/w3c/ColorWeb-CG/blob/main/hdr_html_canvas...